Unplugging the Wrong USB Cord...

Wreaks havoc to your iPhoto.

Apparently.

But really? I should know that by now as I've already done it a couple of times.

I happen to have all of my photos on an external drive (sweetly put there by my personal tech boy...kind of like a pool boy, but with less Speedo and more Airstream) to free up space on my MacBook (cause my aforementioned tech boy almost fainted one day when he saw most all of my memory was eaten up...he originally thought it must be my vast picture library, when in all reality it was my vast iTunes...which according to him, took him 3 years to get as much as I currently have. What can I say? Me likey music and movies...) So, everything went onto an external hard drive or two. Yay! I guess...While I know some about the computer and it's wily ways...I don't feel totally confident all the time of my computer skills. I know, it's a personal thing. (I'm also one of those people who said, when tech boy noticed that my memory was all gone, "Wha!?!? Why?? Why is my memory all gone? What do you mean I have to get an external hard drive? And that will wear out in 10 years...that is ridiculous!! And it's going to cost me how much?!?!" Tech boy is a good sport during these outbursts and deserves a pizza or a cookie or something...)

Now...what the heck am I talking about?

Who knows?

Kidding...I do. (mostly)

Sometimes I take the MacBook to Snap Snap with me to be my work companion. It's easy to do...it's a laptop and I just pack it into it's special Brenthaven MacBag and off I go. Well...when I do such a thing, I unplug my external hard drive because it's too big to lug all around town...and jam down here MacBook Al Fresco. Well, when I get home, I plug the drive back in, it updates and backs up (or whatever they do) and I'm off and running again (well, sort of. I try not to run too much with the drive plugged in, becuase it's taken some nasty falls and the cover kind of needs to be popped into place here and there...which is something not to tell the tech boy that took you shopping for such a thing and then sweetly set it up for you) And, I plug the hard drive into the USB port farthest away from where I sit (there are 2 total, and it's just a habit of mine to leave the one closest to me open so I can put more mobile USB things in it...it's easier to reach...creature of habit...blah blah blah)

So. The other morning, I plugged in the USB cable to a port (I was standing on the other side of the machine and was too lazy to check which port I plugged it in...I just felt around and jammed it into the first place it fit. You can imagine what a whiz I was at those shape games when I was little...round peg, square hole...) and then took some pictures of the goods I got from the Farmer's Market...put them into the card reader, off loaded them and then unplugged the reader.

Or so I thought.

(this is the dramatic part)

Upon unplugging what I thought was the USB to the card reader...I got one of those pop up windows telling me that I unplugged something illegally or some such things, and horrible things would happen to me or my computer or the thing I just unplugged...I don't know exactly what it said, I usually ignore and then close those windows because they're kind of like an overprotective parent and are yelling and waving their arms around for no reason. Usually those windows don't scare me, but this time? Horrible things happened (just like that one time your over protective parents were right? In this case, it was a big ole, "I told you so") And the next time I looked, all of my pictures had departed from iPhoto and gone on vacation in my hard drive. (which usually would have been the part that I wept over, but as I said...I've already done this before, so I'm kind of old hat...which does certainly bring up the point that I should probably pay attention to either where I'm plugging my cords or how to fix this problem myself...but we're not going to mention that are we?)

It seems I had unplugged my drive instead of my reader.

Gah!

All because I plugged the drive into the front USB port when I usually plug it into the one behind the closest one to me...and I'm such a creature of habit, I ejected the reader successfully...and then pulled the wrong plug. Of course, I know that all the pictures are backed up and are still living in my external drive, but I personally don't know how to get them from the drive into iPhoto and all formatted or organized or what have you...and make them all pretty like my tech boy can...and we've both had busy busy days. So. I'm totally stuck for pictures right now.

Maddening.

(cause you know how much I hate to post without pictures!)